Well I did good to get to 35 weeks illness free (except the SPD) but now its all happening…
I felt so exhausted yesterday that all I could do was sleep.
I had a long nights sleep.
Woke up, moved to the sofa for a 2 hour nap.
Woke up for a snack and had another nap.
Woke up to watch tuesdays Holby City and then had another nap.
Decided I should do some housework…got as far as opening the washing machine door and started crying (gotta love hormones!).
So I called my docs and asked for an interim midwife appointment as I just felt a 4 week gap between appointments was too much right now and I wasnt exactly examined on any of my earlier appointments.
My appointments tend to go like this… Queue 20 mins for scan. Have 10 minute scan. Queue 2 hours in Antenatal, Midwife moves me to side room, takes my blood pressure and leaves me there for half an hour to an hour. If we have Bunny with us, its by this point we start playing noisy games and tickling with her so she will make as much noise as possible, in the hope they will speed up to try and get rid of us. Doctor comes in and says “you’ve had your scan and the babies are fine, so lets make an appointment in 4 weeks”. Doctor leaves and nobody has really touched me or bothered to ask how I’m feeling! So Excuse me for not feeling particularly well cared for by the current NHS!
Anyway to cut a long story short, the midwives agreed that I should have had better care, and 2 weekly appointments by this stage, as well as blood tests. So they sent me to hospital for general checks and bloods. They were concerned I might be anaemic. I was expecting to be in triage perhaps an hour or two? but they had other ideas!
The fitted heartbeat tracers to monitor the babies, but the babies, like magic, instantly woke up. Tiny had hiccups and Fluffy decided to kick the shit out of the tracers. So the midwife kept going out and coming back in to find that my belly was still throwing shapes like a drunk woman at a disco. This happened for over an hour. When she eventually got a (very kick interupted) tracing, she realised that instead of monitoring two heartbeats, she’d just tracked the same heartbeat twice! Queue scan…
Well Tiny and Fluffy have a marmite opinion of scans, I can’t tell if they love it or hate it, but the second that doppler hits my belly, they start busting some moves again. Attempt two with the tracers takes over an hour for a 20 minute trace!
Bunny by this point is getting bored and restless and I’ve been there 3 hours. She is also rather concerned that the midwives are going to make all the pregnant ladies drink their own wee (what exactly has she been watching on tele?) The midwife tells hubby that I’m going to be there quite some time and so he should take her to a friends for the night. An angel of a friend offers to take her for the night so they leave. I drop a not-so-subtle hint that I’m starving and the midwife brings me a “meal”…
Ok so it contained Sandwiches, an apple and the worlds smallest carton of “Healthcare Orange Juice”. Are they joking? seriously? HELLO… I’M EATING FOR THREE HERE! WHERE’S THE REST OF IT? And how can Orange juice be “For hospital use only”? What are they going to do with it – inject it? Stick it up my nose? Mix it with wee like Bunny suggested?
Cue text to hubby “When you come back…Bring Chocolate!!!”
A few hours later I see a doctor who tells me I have very high levels of Protein in my urine and my Blood Pressure is high – borderline worrying; but very high for me. I know my norm is 90/60 but it was 144/92 so i only had to glance up to know they’re thinking Pre-Eclampsia, yet nobody said the words. I was having palipitations so they made me change into one of those disgusting hospital gowns where your bum hangs out the back! A little chinese man came in and got all embarrassed about having to touch the underside of my breast to fit ECG wires, under the watch of some poor healthcare assistant he had just poached from the hallway. Surely he does this all the time? “Relax and breathe normally, but dont move a muscle”…WHAT? how is that relaxing? So I am half tense, half relaxed, wondering if breathing counts as moving?
By now its getting late, my phone battery has died, I realise the magazine I found to read at the nurses station is all pictures and adverts, with hardly any words and really quite boring. All the images in it contain shoes that cost £800 or dresses that cost £1000… never-gunna-happen! So, like all bored and curious people, I take up listening to the lady in the next cubicle. She’s in premature labour and one of those people who sounds like she’s having an orgasm every time a contraction hits. I know they are contractions, but its still uncomfortable listening to her gasping and panting and picturing a fat sweaty naked man on top of her. I am however feeling a little jealous of her contractions though because whilst she’s in pain, at least she’s not bored OUT OF HER MIND like moi! and she will soon have a baby to show for her time in hospital, whereas all I will gain is another bout of indigestion and possibly Pre-Eclampsia.
Hubby returns, dutifully with chocolate, phone charger, book and Gaviscon. I love him so much!
We wait a few more hours and eventually at ten to midnight they tell me they are 70% sure I’m developing Pre-Eclampsia but they arent going to do anything about it yet! And finally after 8 hours in hospital, after all the chinese takeaways have closed, they discharge me!
xxx
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